Not really. Most of us know how to use knives and forks, how to measure out flour, how to pour, and how to use appliances. We've grown up learning to do that stuff because you typically have to cook to eat unless you're following some oddball diet. When I want to try out a new recipe I don't need to spend 45 minutes watching videos and reading strat guides so that I can teach nine other people how to help me barbeque ribs. I just follow the directions and get it done with no prep beyond what that recipe demands. Over time I will find ways to improve and/or expedite steps in the recipe, but that's done "on the job" and not through study.

Long before you've taken up that hobby you've already learned to work with the tools required. From then it's just like cooking. You grab the manual, see what needs to go where, and just do it. No need for extensive preparation, and no need to find nine other guys to help you build your engine.

I learned how to cross stitch in third grade. My 11-year-old daughter is learning to knit. It doesn't require study. Someone shows you what to do and you just do it. The process of knitting itself is absolutely trivial.

These examples you gave are the equivalent of saying you need to know how to press buttons to play WoW, and I'm pretty sure that all of us have at least that much competence. The suggestion that we need to "study" to "learn to play" has far larger implications than the examples you gave. Each raid boss is an entirely new game in and of itself. It requires a unique set of skills to be executed in a particular manner, and it requires a minimum of 10 people to do it. I personally do "study" and "learn to play" before raiding, but I'm not silly enough to expect every other WoW player to go that far. Blizzard needs to draw in far more than the number of players who are as enthusiastic about the game as I am to maintain their revenue.

You are ignoring the fact that yes everyone has the BASIC skill set to do many things....but to do well and excel in to takes much more than MINIMAL and BASIC skills to do so, which REQUIRE learning/training beyond the BASIC set REQUIRED. I know how to walk (since being a toddler) thus I know how to run (since a young age) but that does not mean i can run a damn marathon. You have to TRAIN to be able to handle running a marathon. You can't just say...well I know how to run so Boston here I come. I'm gonna go beat those kenyans!!!! Your guys' arguments are so porous that you make swiss cheese seem whole.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

In that way it is like WoW. Sure you can succeed at Flex and LFR by experimenting, but those that prefer to train and research fights and what not do normal and heroic raiding. That's as designed. There's room for everyone, and you're being silly when you tell people that they absolutely must study in order to play. That's like telling people that they need to be master chefs before they're allowed to cook their own meals.

No you don't need to study to play...you need to study to play the harder difficulties. But people who aren't wanting to study to get better to do the harder difficulties are complaining they can't do it and feel it is unfair. Totally different.

You guys don’t bitch and complain about LFR dropping this stuff when its helping you drop your raid boss. Hypocrits.

You use the tools are your disposal. Just because you do not agree with something does not mean you cant abuse the shit out of it for your own benefit.

Volun-told - A supposedly optional event, award, assignment, or activity in which a person (or persons) are required to attend either by persons-in-charge nominating them or their peers expecting them to be there. The individual often has no say in the matter, and non-attendance in frowned upon.I am so tired of seeing terrible people, being admired, for being terrible people.

While I agree that it would be a sad thing to see happen. The reality is
Say a generous 350k players doing normal mode. If all those leave but you have content for the millions of casual players and they stay subbed that's a better solution than.
350k stay but you then lose all your other customers. Its raw numbers. One side outweighs the other.

The problem is that many of the LFR crowd quit anyway once they've cleared the raid, which takes a month at best. Or they're casual players who would stay playing even if LFR was removed, provided there was adequate alternative content to replace it.
Normal/heroic raiders are likely to spend much longer clearing the content, so they stick around longer. And they're far more likely to quit if they literally have no challenging PvE content left to do.

also on the cooking note...sure I know how to cook, but I want to make a chocolate mousse cake or whatever it is (I don't cook so laugh all you want). Now I ASSUME chocolate is involved in the recipe but have no clue what else. Now would you like me to come make you a cake or would you prefer someone who took the time to look up ALL the ingredients and prep time and cooking heat do it for you instead?

And you can learn playing WoW by trial and error. It is just less effective. Just as learning to cook by experimenting is.
You are not and never will be required to study WoW.

And you can go into LFR and experiment. I was usually topping the dps meters as warlock in cata but when I noticed someone in less gear than me was doing far more damage I looked into what I was doing wrong and realised that I was using 1 ability wrong which fed into all of them. I can't experiment on scheduled raid night. I recently switched to destro lock and thankfully I could re-tune my muscle memory in LFR's or else I would still be underperforming in my guilds raid. I can also experiment with my abilities in LFR to learn new tricks to killing more puddles in Immerseus rather than testing in raid one time a week (due to lock out and 1 shot). I send my raid members into lfr if they are not getting a mechanic like disc attunement spirals, dorummu's maze or whirlwind alley, where they can practice at any time of day as many times as they want without jeapardizing our raids progress. LFR is an excellent tool for a raid-like environment if used properly.

The problem is that many of the LFR crowd quit anyway once they've cleared the raid, which takes a month at best. Or they're casual players who would stay playing even if LFR was removed, provided there was adequate alternative content to replace it.
Normal/heroic raiders are likely to spend much longer clearing the content, so they stick around longer. And they're far more likely to quit if they literally have no challenging PvE content left to do.

Without any sources to backup your claims, i'm finding it hard to believe you.

The fact is casual players are always going to be the main audience for WoW, the numbers simply outweigh the rest.

Originally Posted by Potboza

I created a black human male called "Pedopriest" and ran him to SW.
I started asking where the schools were.
Someone said "My kids play on this server you creep! How can you live with yourself?"
I whispered back, "How old are they?"
Yeah.

also on the cooking note...sure I know how to cook, but I want to make a chocolate mousse cake or whatever it is (I don't cook so laugh all you want). Now I ASSUME chocolate is involved in the recipe but have no clue what else. Now would you like me to come make you a cake or would you prefer someone who took the time to look up ALL the ingredients and prep time and cooking heat do it for you instead?

Are you making a cake for 24 people at the presidents ball or are you making cake for your kids? Will your kids murder you if you fail to make the cake right? The entire cooking argument is stupid since LFR was not designed for the best players, thats what regular and heroic raids were made for.

They have said that a dungeon takes just about as long as a raid wing to design. It takes 6 months to make 4 wings, to keep casuals occupied they would have to make 2 dungeons a month. Thats 12 dungeons (or 12 raid wings) every 6 months.

If the dungeons were tuned at a Cata/TBC level on heroic, and Wrath level on normal, that would be absolutely awesome for both casual and hardcore alike.
I mean as a heroic raider I really only needed a handful of truly difficult bosses to keep me entertained. Wrath was a fun expansion to raid in despite having about half of the number of heroic/hardmode bosses Panda does.

(Guild) Raidleader, “Man LFR sucks, just a bunch of bads with welfare legendaries and welfare purples. ”
(Guild) Raider, “Yeah, they should not allow them to have tier sets or trinkets, give a people areason to join raiding guilds.”
(Guild) Raidleader, “Totally, oh BTW Healer1 can’t make it to raid tonight, you have any friends that can fill in as a healer? Without a Healer we won’t be raiding tonight.”
(Guild) Raid, “I’ll check.”
Raider whispers to friend, “Hey you have a healer alt right? Are they raid worthy because we really need a healer tonight to raid.”
Friend whispers to Raider, “Yeah I have a mistweaver, all LFR gear including 4 piece set, BIS trinkets and legendary cloak.”
(Guild) Raid, “I got us a healer for tonight! ”

You guys don’t bitch and complain about LFR dropping this stuff when its helping you drop your raid boss. Hypocrits.

You didn't see all the complaining about how LFR is forced and mandatory? Remove gear and everything solved.

I want Blizzard to decide who is worthy to do content, not You. Frankly I already call your judgement of who is worthy into question. If you allow the playerbase to decide who gets to do content then you will just get the raiding guild dilemma all over again, only the elite get invited in

Raiding guilds generally only apply stringent requirements if the content they raid demands it. Traditional raiding requires regular attendance and a certain level of skill and gear. Even LFR has a low but still present skill and gear barrier.

Do you also feel sports teams are elitist because they make people do tryouts and commit to a schedule?

I think what the LFR haters want is for casuals to gather around the Auction House mailbox in their green and as many as two (2) pieces of blue gear, and marvel at them in their *gasp* purple epics. Emotes of /e chants "We're not worthy" are preferred. No casuals should be on a mount either, so as to ensure that they can properly appreciate the special achievement mount the 1337 people are sitting on.

This is my strong suspicion as to what the complainers would prefer. I can't think of any other reason to complain - as a normal and eventually heroic mode raider, I love LFR - I use it to get my set bonuses sooner, fish for upgrades (just ran Galakras in LFR last night trying for the belt, curse my timeless belt) etc. My average item level is 561 equipped, 562 otherwise due to some warforged gear I won't wear because it would break my four piece. And that's not even counting when I get bored later and start playing alts.

More to the point, casuals having epics doesn't take anything away from me. It just doesn't. If it did I would care.

If you put epics in non-raid content then the same guys screaming now about LFR would be screaming that you can get it in easier than lfr content and the rest would be screaming that their guild would require them to do that to get a purple. Look at how much bitching there was because a purple ring was at the end of a daily rep grind.

Purples have been given out for rep grinds and running 5 man dungeons since TBC. I think we can safely ignore anyone who complains about it.

I really hate how people look at LFR in a vacuum. Very few people are going to quit and just say "LFR".

Its the changes that came with LFR to the community, the attitudes of the average player, and the idea that you deserve everything. It also attracts ADD gamers who have no intent on sticking with the game, thus the high turnover rates. LFR was a short-sighted implementation.

The thing that made the game better before was that whining and being shitty got you nowhere. People who wanted to play shut the fuck up and did what they had to do to get what they want. I still dont understand why people who didnt want to achieve those goals bothered playing. Why play an RPG if you dont like them?

I am in a guild with 2 other active people and I haven't spoken in guild chat in like a year or so. I don't raid cause I can not commit to a schedule. Leave LFR alone if you don't like it don't do it. Leave shit alone

Youre exactly the kind of player who needs to be pushed back out into the game. With LFR, you and thousands of others just slink back into isolation and queue-based play.

Not really. Most of us know how to use knives and forks, how to measure out flour, how to pour, and how to use appliances. We've grown up learning to do that stuff because you typically have to cook to eat unless you're following some oddball diet. When I want to try out a new recipe I don't need to spend 45 minutes watching videos and reading strat guides so that I can teach nine other people how to help me barbeque ribs. I just follow the directions and get it done with no prep beyond what that recipe demands. Over time I will find ways to improve and/or expedite steps in the recipe, but that's done "on the job" and not through study.

Would you practice your new cooking skills before cooking a meal for 9/24 other people? I'd be pretty embarrassed if I tried that from scratch and making something horrible and inedible.

You use the tools are your disposal. Just because you do not agree with something does not mean you cant abuse the shit out of it for your own benefit.

LoL! You can’t abuse something that is specifically designed for this purpose! They put good stuff in LFR so you can’t be denied a place in a normal raid, so you can move alts into a raid, so you can move into raiding without being dragged to the loot. If ‘abusing the shit’ out of the system makes you feel better about being a hypocrit and lets you sleep at night then have at it. It’s like saying, “Man this car can go 60 miles an hour, I’m going to abuse the shit out of it and drive 60 miles an hour!” ROFLMAO!!

You didn't see all the complaining about how LFR is forced and mandatory? Remove gear and everything solved.

Then remove gear from raiding while you are at it, then no one complains about gear at all and everything solved. If its forced and mandatory thats on your guild, not Blizzard. Stand up, be a man and say no, then like a man live with the consequences. If your guild forces you to crawl up an elephants ass for a purple ring and chew your way out and you let them make you do it then thats on you, not blizzard for putting the elephant there. If you don't want to do it don't belong to a guild that requires it. Its on you to be a man, not society.